Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Have you ever experienced mental exhaustion where you feel that you just can't get your thoughts together?
There is an explanation for this and it will get on your nerves.
Let's start with a brief explanation fo nerves.
Nerves are not directly connected to one another. There is a fluid filled cavity that exist between the axon and dendrite (these are input and output connections of two adjacent nerves) and it is called a synapse. When the electrical impulse travels down the axon and meets the space/synapse, it causes a chemical reaction in the synapse. If the impulse from the axon is strong enough the chemical signal will cause the next nerve to fire. The impulse will then travel through the next nerve. However, when this same nerve circuit fires throught the same synapse many times over, the fluid in the synaptic space becomes exhausted. When that happens, the incoming nerve signal can no longer stimulate the next nerve to fire. This results in the signal dying out at the synapse.
This is how thoughts can be lost. We start a thought, but since the synaptic fluid is exhausted, the signal does not propagate any further. The result is that we forget what we were thinking about.
So what leads to this synaptic exhaustion? The underlying cause is this type of "forgetting" is usually a deficiency in B vitamins. B vitamins are the main precursors to synaptic fluid. the body can store B12 easily, but the other B vitamins are harder to store. B vitamins are depleted rapidly is you are under stress (and who isn't?).
When we take a good supply of B vitamins (and vitamin C), the synaptic fuild is renewed in around 20 to 30 minutes and mental exhaustion quickly disappears.